Turbomachinery components can be designed using computer automated design (CAD) software to generate a dataset representing the shape of the component. Computer automated manufacturing (CAM) software can then be used to translate the data set into a series of machining instructions for manufacturing the component.
Turbomachinery components are often manufactured by a machining process whereby material is removed from a work piece with a mill having a rotary cutter. Significant advancements in machining time, part tolerances, and part finishes have been realized by employing a flank milling process, where the side of an elongated cutter is used to remove material, rather than the end of the cutter, which is utilized in a point milling process. Flank milling, however, can only be used to machine certain geometries and state of the art turbomachinery components often have very complex shapes. In addition, modern CAD software provides designers with great flexibility for designing components, enabling complex design processes to optimize component geometry. This high degree of flexibility can lead to the design of a component that will be difficult or impossible to flank mill. The designer, however, may not realize he or she has designed a component that cannot be flank milled until very late in the design process, for example, not until prototyping or manufacturing. At that point the designer is in an undesirable position choosing between proceeding with a less efficient and more costly manufacturing process such as point milling, or going back and re-designing the component. And even if a flank millable geometry is input into the CAM software, the machine instructions calculated by the CAM program can result in excessive machine motion and undesirably long machining times.